Six Crises (71 page)

We had talked by this time for almost an hour and, as he got up to leave, our conversation again turned to a lighter vein. I told him that he wouldn't have to bother about making news in the next few weeks because the new baby they were expecting in December would probably turn out to be a bigger story than anything that had happened in the campaign. He laughed and said that while he had a great deal of work to do in selecting his Cabinet, he did hope to get some rest before undertaking what he knew would be the very arduous duties that would be his after January 20.

As a parting comment, I urged that he take off whatever time he felt was necessary for relaxation after he became President. I told him how enjoyable I thought he would find Camp David and recounted the fact that I had written my acceptance speech there. And I said: “In the months ahead, I will from time to time try to offer constructive criticism of policies you may be following. But of one thing I can assure you: I shall never join in any criticism of you, expressed or implied, for taking time off for relaxation. There is nothing more important than that a President be physically, mentally, and emotionally in the best possible shape to confront the immensely difficult decisions he has to make.” Kennedy seemed to be deeply appreciative of this comment and, with that, we asked Pierre Salinger and Herb Klein to come to the villa so that we could find out what arrangements had been made for his meeting with the press. I escorted him back to the hotel, to the room where the press and TV reporters were waiting, and we parted on cordial terms.

After two more days in Florida and then three in Nassau, I returned to Washington. We had planned to make this a longer holiday. But we had found that it was too soon after the campaign to unwind.

This had been my experience in previous campaigns. My layman's analysis of what happens is that an individual gears up his mind, body, and emotions to run at double or triple speed during a campaign. Once the job is done, the system just won't slow down to a walk instantly. A runner at the end of a race jogs a few more yards to taper off, and I find that the same therapy is called for after a campaign
or any major crisis. That is why a vacation immediately after a battle is not nearly so enjoyable as one taken a week or a month later, when one has had time to adjust to a more normal pace of activity.

In addition, daily calls to my Washington office made me realize that this was no time to take a vacation. In just two more months, on January 20, 1961, and for the first time in fourteen years, I would be without an office, a staff, or a job. And there was what looked like a solid year's work still to be done in those two months.

I had to close my office and dispose of a fourteen-year accumulation of files. There were now over 100,000 letters and wires in the office which had to be answered. Most important, I felt a personal responsibility to see that all these post-campaign details were handled properly. This meant the preparation of letters to those who had contributed to and worked in the campaign. It meant helping to find jobs for members of my own staff and of the campaign staff who, like myself, would shortly be “at liberty.”

When I got back to Washington I was faced with the immediate necessity of making one vital decision. What should I do with regard to the mounting charges of voting frauds and the demands that I ask for a recount in Illinois and other states where the outcome had been particularly close? In order to make this decision, I spent a day with my staff analyzing the final election returns.

The popular vote margin had now been whittled down to 113,000, out of 68,800,000 votes cast. A change of half-a-vote per precinct, nationwide, would have shifted that margin to me. One enterprising statistically minded commentator even pointed out that if the votes for Alabama's six uncommitted electors were subtracted from Kennedy's total, I would have led in the popular vote count.

I had received 49.6 per cent of the total vote, while Republican candidates for Congress had received 44.8 per cent. One gratifying aspect of the returns was that we had gained a net of 22 seats in the House and two in the Senate. We had made substantial gains in the state legislatures. And my staff pointed out that I could, perhaps, take some credit for this achievement in view of this fact: of the 27 Congressional Districts that returned a newly elected Republican, I had run ahead of the successful congressional candidate in all but four.

The electoral vote count was 303 to 219 (there were 15 votes pledged to neither Kennedy nor me). But a shift, for example, of 4000 votes each in Illinois and Missouri, and of a total of 3000 to 5000 votes in any two such states as New Mexico, Nevada, or Hawaii, would have
changed the electoral result as well. Thus, a swing of between 11,000 and 13,000 votes—properly distributed in a few states—and the election results would have been reversed.

We then turned to the fraud charges. From the evidence I examined, there was no question but that there was real substance to many of these charges. To cite just a few of them—each one sworn to and widely published:

(1) Fannin County, Texas (which went 3 to 1 for Kennedy): there were 4895 voters on the official “poll tax list” but 6138 votes were counted.

(2) Angelia County, Texas, 27th Precinct: 86 individuals were officially recorded as having voted—but the final tally was Kennedy, 147–Nixon, 24.

(3) Fort Bend County, Texas, two adjoining precincts: in one, which voted Nixon over Kennedy, 458 to 350, 182 ballots were declared void at the “discretion of the judges.” But in the other, 68 to 1 for Kennedy, not a single ballot was declared void.

(4) Chicago, 6th Ward, 38th Precinct: after 43 voters had cast ballots (by machine), the machine tally read 121 total votes. This precinct returned a final count for Kennedy, 408 to 79.

(5) In another Chicago precinct, one that voted for Kennedy by 451 to 67, the initial registration of a husband and wife was challenged on grounds of “false address.” On Election Day, both voted. On re-canvass, it was found that there were no such persons at the address listed.

(6) Chicago, 2nd Ward, 50th Precinct: there were only 22 voters on the official list but 77 individuals voted. At this polling place there were three judges present, all Democrats, although the law prescribes that there be five judges, at least two of whom must be Republicans.

(7) A Chicago
Tribune
reporter and her husband found on Election Day that their names had been removed from the voting list despite the fact that both had legal residence in the precinct and both had voted from that address in 1956.

But substance or not, when I looked into the legal aspects of the situation, I found that it would take at least a year and a half to get a recount in Cook County, and that there was no procedure whatever for a losing candidate to get a recount in Texas.

Many of my close friends and associates urged, nevertheless, that I demand a recount. They felt it was important for me to continue fighting so long as there was any hope whatever of winning. They also thought that, even should the effort fail, the publicity which would result from my taking the lead in demanding a recount would carry
over and be most helpful to Republican candidates in the 1962 and 1964 elections. This was a compelling appeal in view of my responsibilities as a party leader.

But I finally made the decision against demanding a recount for what appeared to me, on balance, to be several overriding considerations. If I were to demand a recount, the organization of the new Administration and the orderly transfer of responsibility from the old to the new might be delayed for months. The situation within the entire Federal Government would be chaotic. Those in the old Administration would not know how to act—or with what clear powers and responsibilities—and those being appointed by Kennedy to positions in the new Administration would have the same difficulty making any plans.

Then too, the bitterness that would be engendered by such a maneuver on my part would, in my opinion, have done incalculable and lasting damage throughout the country. And finally, I could think of no worse example for nations abroad, who for the first time were trying to put free electoral procedures into effect, than that of the United States wrangling over the results of our presidential election, and even suggesting that the presidency itself could be stolen by thievery at the ballot box. It is difficult enough to get defeated candidates in some of the newly independent countries to abide by the verdict of the electorate. If we could not continue to set a good example in this respect in the United States, I could see that there would be open-season for shooting at the validity of free elections throughout the world.

Consequently, I made the decision not to support the contest and recount charges. I know that this greatly disappointed many of my best friends and most ardent supporters—but I could see for myself no other responsible course of action.

With this question decided, I turned to the mountain of correspondence that had to be answered before January 20. This is perhaps the most difficult of all the tasks a defeated candidate has to face. Writing notes of thanks and appreciation to friends and supporters after a successful campaign is, of course, a thoroughly enjoyable assignment. This same assignment for a losing candidate is like burying a dead horse. But I considered it far more important in defeat than in victory. Literally thousands of people across the nation had worked as hard as I had in this campaign. Their disappointment was just as great. The least they should have, then, was some recognition from the candidate
that their efforts were appreciated. In the eight weeks between November 20 and January 20, my small office staff did a herculean job. We got out more than 160,000 letters—individually typed and signed—acknowledging messages we had received and thanking key workers for what they had done in the campaign. And my staff addressed and mailed over 500,000 cards, containing a personal message from Pat and me, to our volunteer workers and contributors.

As I worked through this mountain of mail, I found some real satisfactions in reading and answering it. And the thousands who wrote us will never know how much their letters and messages meant, not only to me but even more to Pat and the girls, the members of my staff, and others with whom I shared the sentiments expressed.

Dictating all these letters took many hours of time and thought. But my effort was nothing compared to what my small vice presidential staff did during this period. Without a break—except for Christmas Day itself—right on up to January 20, they worked at a back-breaking 80-hour-week pace. And for the two days before January 20, Rose Woods, Loie Gaunt, Marilyn Matthews, Don Hughes, and Bob Cushman worked literally around the clock.

Despite the fact that we got out a tremendous volume of mail, a few of the names of those who had contributed to and supported our campaign did get overlooked in the shuffle—but they were the exceptions. I had always been proud of my staff's reputation for being one of the hardest working groups on Capitol Hill. But this time they broke even their own records for dedication, efficiency, and sheer productivity—and in a difficult period after defeat when it was so hard to maintain spirit and morale.

During the Christmas holidays, Pat and I had a brief respite from the killing pace when we took Tricia and Julie up to New York. For months they had been wearing out their recordings of the scores of some of the top Broadway musicals on our stereo-phonograph. We had promised that after the campaign we would go to New York and see some of the shows “live.” It turned out to be one of the most pleasant trips we had ever taken—not least because of the warm hospitality of such people as Walter and Jeanne Thayer whose guests we were at a performance of
Fiorello!
The show on-stage exceeded even the high expectations we had built up from hearing it on records. But an incident occurred which made it mean even more. As we entered the Broadhurst Theatre just before curtain time, several people recognized us and started to applaud. Before we could find our seats, the
entire audience rose and joined in. This was as unexpected for a typically blasé New York audience as it was heartwarming. It obviously meant a great deal to Pat and me. But what we appreciated most was that it meant so much to Tricia and Julie. As we rode back to our hotel from the theater, Tricia said to us: “You see—the people still like you.”

•  •  •

Back in the Capital, we had before us a particularly heavy social and official schedule. There were two White House dinners over which Mrs. Eisenhower presided with all her friendly graciousness and poise. The President, on each occasion, proposed toasts in which he spoke warmly of the contributions Pat and I had made to his Administration and of our efforts during the last campaign.

Pat and I hosted a number of receptions and dinners for friends in Washington and for those who had been most closely associated with us during the campaign in other parts of the country. Governor and Mrs. James Byrnes paid us the high compliment of coming from South Carolina to Washington for one such dinner. In his toast, the Governor said: “If the Vice President had won this election, I would not be here tonight. But because he lost, Mrs. Byrnes and I wanted to come to Washington to assure him and Mrs. Nixon of our continued friendship and support.” Afterward, he told me that he well recalled his own feelings when he lost his first election campaign. “Only a man who has suffered a close defeat,” he said, “can possibly know how someone else feels under the same circumstances.”

I had only one more test as far as my official duties were concerned before January 20, and it was a minor one. On January 6, as Vice President and President of the Senate, I was to preside with Speaker Rayburn over a Joint Session of Congress for the now obsolete but still constitutionally required ceremony of counting the electoral votes. Earl Mazo, an hour before the session was to begin, called my office to suggest that in view of some comments in the press gallery that this would be an embarrassing moment for me, I might well make some statement at the time I announced the official outcome. This was, in fact, a most unusual occasion. Only once before had the defeated candidate had the responsibility of presiding over his own “funeral” by announcing his defeat in a Joint Session, and this had occurred exactly one hundred years before when John C. Breckinridge announced the election of Abraham Lincoln. I thought the idea was a good one and made a few mental notes as to what I might appropriately say.